UNICEF sponsored program SwimSafe provides Bangladeshi children with swimming skills and survival techniques in an effort to prevent drowning during monsoon season.
Portable swimming facilities in the city of Dhaka teaches children ages 4-10 from various economic levels. The program utilizes a 21-step process that teaches swimming confidence, floating and swimming skills, basic rescue techniques and identification of life-threatening water hazards. In order to graduate a child must be able to tread water for 30 seconds, swim unassisted in open water for 25 minutes and demonstrate basic survival techniques.
Sabrejun Nahar, instructor at an Amin Bazaar pool, explains that “learning freestyle swimming in a pool is different from actually swimming in a pond or a river. An unknown fear factor always creeps into your mind: What if you drown? That is why it is important for all students to be able to tread water for at least 30 seconds.”
In Bangladesh’s more rural areas, swimming pools are made from bamboo fenced areas of local ponds. UNICEF explains that children from these areas are given little opportunity to learn swimming skills, and therefore are at serious risk of drowning.
A young girl from Amin Bazaar says “I learned to swim in six days and swam at a big, tiled pool when we went on a school picnic. My friends were all surprised with me swimming, and now they all want to enroll here next month.”
According to a statistic conducted by Bangladesh’s Centre for Injury Prevention and Research (CIPRB), every 31 minutes a child in Bangladesh drowns. The 2005 survey revealed the largest cause of death for Bangladeshi children between ages 1-17 was drowning; one out of four children was 1-10 years of age. Since SafeSwim’s commencement in 2006, over 300,000 children have been taught how to swim.
Dr Jahangir Hossain, program coordinator for the country’s CIPRB said “It’s a hidden epidemic. Proportionate to the population, more children die from drowning in Bangladesh than in any other country. But most of the programs combating child mortality are focused on infectious diseases. Drowning hardly gets a mention in national policy circles.”
The monsoon season in Bangladesh contributes 90% of the country’s annual rainfall and normally leaves about one third of the country underwater.
Creative Commons Love: peterzak on Flickr.com
